ANC01FA102 · Cessna 185
Cessna 185 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Wasilla, AK to TYONEK, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC01FA102
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 185
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N4849C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wasilla, AKTo TYONEK, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel contamination; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fuel system › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed his residence at a private lake in a float-equipped airplane to transport passengers to another remote lake. Prior to his departure, the airplane was fueled by the pilot from a 1,000 gallon metal tank located on his lake property. During the fueling process, the metal tank's fuel supply was exhausted, but sufficient fuel was obtained to fill one fuel tank, and nearly fill the other. Before departing for the day, the pilot purchased 15 gallons of additional fuel at a nearby airport and placed 5 gallons of the additional fuel in the airplane fuel tanks. He then conducted two round-trip flights to the remote lake. After a day of fishing at the remote lake, the pilot flew to his residence, and added 10 gallons of additional fuel to the airplane. Two empty five gallon fuel cans were found at his dock. He then departed on the accident flight to pick up additional passengers from the remote lake, but he did not arrive at his destination. The airplane was located inverted in an area of tall trees. The airplane flaps were extended full down. The engine did not appear to be running at the time of the accident. The airplane's fuel totalizer indicated 29 gallons of fuel. A postaccident examination of the engine found no mechanical malfunctions. Minor wrinkles were found along the bottom of each of the airplane's fuel bladders. The gascolator contained about a teaspoon of water and particulate contamination. The header tank had about an ounce of fuel and water. The fuel pump contained no fuel. Evidence of tan-colored particulate contamination was found in a fluid sample obtained from the fuel filter housing, attached to the pilot's fuel tank hand pump on his fuel tank.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during cruise flight due to fuel system contamination with water, and the pilot's inadequate preflight procedures. A factor in the accident was unsuitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC01FA102
- Event ID
- 20010824X01772
- Case number
- ANC01FA102
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-08-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 122e574d8d198b816d43e332a724727978e914eaa1c5881a9803b6296d056945; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:25:05.604Z.